"How do I see who has been looking at my Facebook profile?"

How can you tell who has been looking at your Facebook account?

That’s the question I was asked yesterday.

Email from Ruth about Facebook

It’s a question that many people have asked, keen as they are to find out if that cute girl from the accounts department has been checking them out, or whether the hunky guy at the gym meant anything more when he oh-so-carefully wiped his sweat off the treadmill.

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And, of course, you might be keen to find out if that creepy guy in the lunch queue at work is cyber-stalking you.

Bad news, I’m afraid. There is *no* way that you can find out who has been looking at your Facebook profile. The only people who might have the data is Facebook itself, and it doesn’t seem interested in providing the functionality.

So anything which claims to offer you a way to find out who has been peeking at your profile, is almost certainly a scam.

Profile stalking Facebook scam

Proceed with caution and be careful not to be duped into clicking on any links, or completing any surveys to get some “magic” Facebook power.

Time and time again we have seen *thousands* of innocent Facebook users be tricked into making bad security decisions, simply by being promised the ability to discover who has been reading their Facebook profile.

Thanks to grahamcluley.com reader Ruth for posing the question. I hope this helped answer it, Ruth!

If anyone else has a question – feel free to drop me a line at [email protected]. I can’t promise to answer them all, but I can always try…

If you want to learn more about the latest Facebook scams, and ways to protect yourself online, like the Graham Cluley Security News Facebook page.


Graham Cluley is an award-winning keynote speaker who has given presentations around the world about cybersecurity, hackers, and online privacy. A veteran of the computer security industry since the early 1990s, he wrote the first ever version of Dr Solomon's Anti-Virus Toolkit for Windows, makes regular media appearances, and is the co-host of the popular "Smashing Security" podcast. Follow him on Twitter, Mastodon, Threads, Bluesky, or drop him an email.

7 comments on “"How do I see who has been looking at my Facebook profile?"”

  1. kjh

    I don't use the site any more, but on the (now mostly defunct) german facebook clone StudiVZ being able to see who had looked at your profile was a standard feature (there was an opt-out, but most people stuck with the default and remained visible).
    Surely the easiest way for facebook to eliminate this kind of scam based on desirable but non-existant features would be to actually implement the feature in question.

  2. GB

    Why is it everyone and anyone can view your Facebook account but you cannot view who has been doing so? You would think since Facebook is a social, public media, you would be able to do so. Especially for security reasons.

    GB

  3. minnie

    I once visited the profile of a person I have spoken to occasionally but not met, just went through his photos and timeline, and a few hours later I get a friend request from him! Could he have somehow found out that I visited his profile?

    1. curious · in reply to minnie

      Now I understand why I get friend requests from people I do not know and who are not a mutual friend of one of my Facebook friends. It is the Facebook sleuthing way to connect people. For example: I viewed the profile of a person (didn't request as a friend) and the next day I am blocked by that person who evidently did not want contact with me.

      Evidently the person who is now asking to be my friend viewed my profile so Facebook asks me if I will friend that person. So the person who blocked me saw a friend request from me (which I did not initiate) and blocked me from seeing their profile again.

      Makes sense?

  4. CPL593H

    Minnie, your profile appeared to him as a suggested friend because you viewed his page. I've had people I've just met show up in my suggested friends list. I don't know if you can opt out of this "feature". If I really don't want people to know I've looked at their profile, I use a fake profile I have to look at them. My fake profile also allows me to double-check my privacy settings.

  5. suraj

    is it possible to hide your ip addres

  6. Armchair Alex

    Can you do a follow-up on this article about the People You May Know feature? I think you can figure out who has looked at your profile through that feature.

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